


Murder in the Scarab's Keep

by bumblebeehrt



Category: Starbound (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12547244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumblebeehrt/pseuds/bumblebeehrt
Summary: Hey this is my first fanfic so if you wanna give feedback that'd be fresh as hell!The Glitch are cool i like their glowy eyes





	Murder in the Scarab's Keep

We open in a small pub in the middle of a dense forest, and it's late. Amber light flickers across the grimy walls of the establishment, and smoke drifts lazily through the air, occasionally darting mischievously into an open mouth and eliciting an impatient cough. A few of this pub's most veteran patrons lounge on bar stools, tables, anywhere to avoid touching the sticky wooden floor, but as per usual for this time of night, little chatter is heard. We see a bounty hunter, a Glitch judging from the faint glow emitted by their eyes - the only part of their body not covered in old, scratched armor spattered with other people's blood - and for a moment, their fingers tense around the screen of their tablet. The bounty hunter rises quickly from their seat, flings a small fistful of pixels in the barkeep's direction, and speed-walks out into the night, the recently-repaired door clanging shut behind them.

Nobody pays them any mind. Nobody pays anyone any mind in the Scarab's Keep.

'The Scarab's Keep'. A name picked at random by the pub's original owner, a nasty piece of work calling himself Hafnacer. A name picked out of a hat by a Glitch who honestly shouldn't have been running a pub, given his general disdain for the wellbeing of others. But when Hafnacer finally croaked, caught off-guard by a bitter Apex who had grown tired of waiting for this sad little Glitch to pay an old debt, and had chosen to fix this particular issue by way of a blunt object to the skull six, seven, eight times, it seemed as though the robot's legacy had transferred over to his establishment. For the Scarab's Keep had a way of infecting its customers with the same spite and bitterness that once plagued its owner. Some people liked to say that Hafnacer's ghost was haunting the moldy building, that this was his way of ensuring that the pub never moved past him, but these people were considered foolish, and not very bright.

Our friend the bounty hunter moves quickly, head down, staring at their device like it had just sprouted wings. The deep sky-blue glow of its screen illuminates their face, light dancing across the cold steel of their jaw as they trek further into the labyrinth of trees, and eventually the Glitch stows away their tablet in a large pocket of their long, grubby coat. This is an untamed forest, its beasts and deadly flora flourishing in the chilly, dry atmosphere, and the bounty hunter knows that they'll need to stay on their toes if they're to reach their ship intact.

Were the Glitch not so preoccupied with their own survival, they might have taken in the bleak beauty of their surroundings. Trees reaching impossibly high, their gnarled and brittle branches clawing at the sky as though trying to scratch and scar the moon itself. Wild, gigantic flowers in a cavalcade of colours, ready to release deadly toxins that would swell and burst the lungs of any creature unfortunate enough to stray close to them. Pools of liquid crystal shimmer gently, looking like a godly hand had scooped chunks out of the earth and filled them with crushed, liquified diamonds. The Glitch notices none of this. If the message displayed by their tablet is to be believed, they have but a few minutes to vacate the area if they want to live, so the Glitch keeps their head down, and they move.

A twig snaps, the crunch of decaying wood echoing through the still, silent scene. The bounty hunter picks up speed, jogging through shrubbery, through puddles that splash freezing water onto their scuffed boots, and then they're falling, down, down into a perfectly placed pit, too small to see from afar but just large enough to hold a smattering of bodies. Landing heavily upon a wet, uneven surface, the Glitch scrambles to their feet, paying no mind to the tablet that shattered beneath their weight. The soft magenta glow of their eyes illuminates the scene: a pile of ice-cold bodies stacked carelessly on top of one another, their hearts having long stopped beating.

A few, not all, but a few of these bodies are recognizable. The Glitch notices the corpse of an Avian they often played cards with back in the pub, but this Avian had always had a habit of cheating, so the Glitch does not mourn her loss greatly. Killing her themself had always been an idea in the back of their mind, but they tried not to do freebies. If someone payed them to take her out, happy days, but if she were to die by another's hand? Well. Less work for them.  
Another, a scrawny human man with embarrassing facial hair and wet, sad eyes lay a few feet away. Despite his less than impressive appearance, the man had been kind to the Glitch when he was alive, so they allow themself a brief moment of grief to see his mangled form. 

At the end of the day, the bounty hunter is a professional. They've stolen more lives than they cared to keep track of, and so they'd like to think they know a thing or two about how the whole murder business operates. They know, for example, when they've been beat, so when they look up at the night sky, dotted with magnificent lights like someone had taken a pinch of stardust and sprinkled it over a puddle of tar, they're not surprised to see an arrow pointing at their chest. Two glowing eyes glance slightly north of the arrow, and finally they see their attacker. A Floran, unsurprisingly, gazes back at them, brittle fingers clutching a lovingly-polished bow, their face illuminated by the flame burning gently on the tip of the arrow. The Glitch nods once, eyes locked with their killer, and moments later their body drapes itself clumsily over the others below them, and those lights, those brilliant pink lights dim without protest.

The job is done, except not quite. With the major threats out of the picture, lured one by one to their deaths, the Floran moves quietly and calmly through the woods, swapping out their bow for a more practical titanium spear, and they whistle as they walk. It's an old tune, passed down through many generations of plant-people, as tuneless as it is irritating. Florans weren't the most musically-inclined, that was a talent best honed by their water-dwelling victims, but they like to indulge themselves now and then. Drums were the most popular of course, serving to provide crude music and alleviate stress through violent smacking and pounding, but a wise Floran had once discovered that their razor-sharp mandibles helped to provide a fun little effect to their whistling! This wise Floran was, of course, eaten alive before he could share his discovery, but another went on to make the same discovery a few years later, so no vital knowledge was lost. 

Some minutes go by, and then the Floran is standing just a few feet away from the door to the Scarab's Keep. Except they don't use the door, why would they? If you're planning to murder a building full of innocents, you don't use the door, for God's sake. No, when the dusty windows of the Scarab's Keep explode inwards, the door remains untouched. When seven carnivorous killers, the Floran's brothers and sisters and siblings storm the dingy old pub, barely giving its occupants time to scream, the door remains untouched. When one particularly desperate human makes a break for the exit and quickly loses his head, the do-. Well. The door gains a fresh, crimson coat of paint.

The job is done, for real this time. We see a small pub in the middle of a dense forest, and it's silent. Amber light illuminates the still bodies of the pub's patrons, and smoke from a fallen Novakid's gun drifts lazily through the air, wafted away by the uncaring hand of a murderer. Were Hafnacer still alive, he would have no doubt been grimly satisfied to see his establishment witness such a brutal and pointless massacre. Less pleased about the property damage, mind you, but you take what you can get. The Florans feast on the warm bodies of the pub's former customers, they laugh and joke about things entirely unrelated to their completed task, and the Scarab's Keep changes owners once more. Once owned by the notorious Hafnacer, before being passed down to his slightly friendlier daughter and then to her wife, the pub now lies in the hands of eight Floran, and it is admittedly put to good use. It becomes a popular hunt of this planet's most undesirable killers, and the group of Floran running the place manage to turn quite the profit.

And when the Scarab's Keep changes owners again a few years later, as yet another group of killers pulls this same stunt, its walls are painted with blood and oil and stardust.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey this is my first fanfic so if you wanna give feedback that'd be fresh as hell!  
> The Glitch are cool i like their glowy eyes


End file.
